


Possibility

by lightningwaltz



Category: Messiah Project - All Media Types
Genre: Devotion, Established Relationship, Haku being Haku, Hand Jobs, Insomnia, Intimacy, M/M, Sharing a Bed, slight body worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:46:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4044661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Eiri isn’t sleeping, and Haku is choosing not to sleep. Those are not the same things.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Possibility

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to keep writing Messiah fic about Haku and Eiri being slightly more emotionally revealing while in bed. (But only slightly.) I also hadn't written from Haku's POV yet, and I really wanted to do that.
> 
> They idea for this story came via a fic prompt from Calenlass Greenleaf, but it's morphed way beyond its original idea. Hope this is okay!
> 
> This story was also really influenced by all the times you see Haku reading. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this made sense given his personality and background.

Whenever insomnia seizes everyone in the building, Haku always knows. It's because the air in Sakura rests strangely on his skin. Breathing becomes more of an ideal than something that can easily be done. Haku wonders if everyone’s thoughts filter through the walls and then gather there. Unwelcome, invisible condensation. On nights like this, he never wants to sleep until everyone else does. The dreams are always bad.

During the first year of his second messiah partnership, a mission had taken him to the stacks of a university. He remembers that experience tonight. All those rows of books. Millions of ideas splayed across countless pages, trapped between threadbare covers, eager to be heard. They, too, had sucked the vitality right out of the room, just by presence alone. 

(“Uh, yeah,” Eiri had said, once, when Haku had mused about the experience. “It’s like that in there to preserve books. There are low oxygen levels, or… something?” Which meant that he had missed the point, or Haku hadn’t expressed himself properly. Still, it was a new thing learned about Eiri. That he had this somewhat unexpected knowledge. Sure, when asked, Eiri couldn’t say how he knew this thing about old books. It was probably something Eiri was told way back when he had been in school. Haku could believe all kinds of things of kids who’d been to school.)

In their bed, Haku occupies himself with his e-reader. He’s become fond of it, in recent weeks, because he’s discovered he can use it while Eiri sleeps. There are so many works contained in this thing, and sometimes he clicks away from one novel just for the pleasure of picking up another. This is light years away from pilfering every book he found and could get away with borrowing. He’s no longer hiding training pamphlets under his pillow. And then there’d been the time he’d come across a dictionary, taken it back to his room, and read every definition within a week. Even now there are certain words Haku keeps to himself. Never sharing aloud, but turning them over and over in his head, analyzing why the syllables drift so thoroughly into one another. His e-reader has a dictionary, one that was released just this year. He’s noticed the certain words that have quietly fallen away. He’s noticed all the new slang that’s sneaked its way in.

Eiri isn’t sleeping, and Haku is choosing not to sleep. Those are not the same things. Eiri’s head has been rolling back and forth, and sometimes he turns from one side to the other. Every so often, his muscles appear to get sore. That must be why Eiri occasionally rests on his back or stomach, in positions he never falls asleep in. It's a distraction, not a solution.

Haku thinks about what it must be like in Eiri’s rest-starved mind right now. Ideas that grow stale over minutes and then hours, tirelessly lighting up all the synapses in his brain. These same ideas that return again and again, like a monotonous pinwheel. Restlessness leading him into a neon-bright stasis. The more he thinks about needing to sleep, the further that possibility recedes from him. 

Maybe Eiri is thinking of the _kouhai._. All their energy and productivity. All the tensions that are rarely discussed, but sometimes yelled. Eiri often gets chatty about them whenever he’s alone with Haku. He will talk about their skills with weapons, the work they need to do on stealth. But sometimes he’ll talk in more philosophical terms. How he wants them to learn from the two of them, and then function successfully on their own. Sometimes he’ll mumble about how he hopes they all make it past graduation. It’s a newer side of Eiri, but the more he displays it, the more Haku decides this isn’t a transformation. It’s just another incarnation, and an endearing one at that. There are so many sides to his messiah- maybe more than words in a dictionary- and if he’s lucky he’ll see almost all of them. 

(No one sees everything about anyone, and that’s good.) 

He understands Eiri’s uncertainty. There’s a unique kind of stress attached to an unfinished endeavor. Sakura has some of the most advanced technology in the world, but not even they can look into the future. There will be no real assurances that they are handling this training the correct way. Maybe they’re already making mistakes that will lead to one of the _kouhai_ becoming another abandoned corpse. All that potential instantly obliterated by explosions, bullets, or knives. 

Maybe all of them will meet that end. 

It’s something Haku considers for a few moments. Then he rolls the idea up like a pile of candy wrappers, and shoves it somewhere deep inside himself. He’s done this to other worries, and he’ll keep on doing it. Sometimes he wonders if they reach out from the depths of his soul, in clingy, suffocating tendrils. Maybe they’re more like mold or mushrooms that thrive in the dark. Maybe they’re poisoning something crucial about himself. But he’s still here, he’s still of service, this method still works. Most of the time. 

The bed makes creaking noses that remind Haku of ghost stories. Eiri has turned onto his side again, this time facing Haku. Eyes firmly shut. He thinks about how his messiah is a sniper, and what this entails. Eiri is quick to anger, but he is fueled by patience. He can- and has- waited with his gun for day after relentless day. Never resting, barely breathing, basic needs consigned to low hum at the back of his mind. Maybe if you do that enough, you trade the ability to sleep for the practicality of endurance. Maybe your body _forgets_ how to sleep, and you have to remind yourself how to do it each and every night.

It would explain a lot.

“Hey, should we push the beds together?” Haku prods Eiri in the thigh, hard. “Lots of pairs do it, here.”

“Ugh, idiot.” Eiri says this a bit too quickly, as though he’d been craning his ears. Waiting for Haku to address him all along. “I was sleeping.”

“No you weren’t.” 

“Neither were you!”

Eiri sighs and glares, and the e-reader’s glow lends the scene a disquieting quality. When Haku sets it to the side, the bed frame practically wails again. His messiah would be one of those loud ghosts. The one that bang cupboards and stomp around in the attic. 

“Yes, but I wasn’t trying to sleep. You were.” 

There’s no counterargument there, and Eiri never reaches for one. “I don’t want to push the beds together,” he says, defeated.

“You sure? You’d have more space to roll around.”

“I don’t- … Are you complaining that there’s so little room in my bed? Because there’s a pretty easy solution to that. Go back to your own bed!” 

“But you’d still be tossing and turning even if I left.” 

Eiri props his head up on his hand. At first there’s an archness to his eyebrow, like he’s examining how all these words link together. Like he thinks there’s an obscure joke in there somewhere. After a while, the scrutiny fades from his eyes, transitioning into something that might be affection. There’s a grudging sweetness to Eiri’s smiles lately. That’s a bit new, and Haku thinks it will feel dizzily new as long as he gets to see them.

Then Eiri’s head flops back onto the pillow. “Yeah, I think I’m pretty much stuck with you sleeping here, at this point. How long has it been, anyway?”

Haku doesn't take long to recall the answer. This had become habit ever since the first full day of training the _kouhai_. Sakura is his home and it is his duty, but’s never conflated these two concept. When he goes into work, Haku presents a very sober, very serious identity. Learning to create and wear masks isn’t difficult when you’ve been doing it for years. 

But new masks chafe and itch when worn too long, and that’s what had happened that first day working with the _kouhai_. Those first work hours with them had exhausted Haku to the core. Four new people with pasts, and skills, and faults. He liked them, they fit into his life rather well, and that was the most tiring thing of all. After that initial training session he and Eiri had gone back to their room, collapsed into the same bed, and they had passed out mid-discussion. 

(Though he has a memory of blankets being pulled over him, and Eiri muttering that he was too tall for them. That his feet were probably going to get cold no matter what and so on and so forth.)

The next morning, when he’d woken up next to Eiri, he’d found it hard to move. This was what fulfillment was like. This was what it was like just before a building crumpled around an explosion. 

He knew, before it was over, that he would never capture this exact feeling again. But he also knew he’d keep coming back to Eiri’s bed. 

“I started-… we started doing this three months and seven days ago.” _I could tell you down to the hour_.

“Oh, please.” Eiri’s says it once, scoffing. “Oh, _please_.” He says it again, and this time there’s something like laughter. Haku wants to shove his hands over his ears and muffle the sound of it. He wants to grasp out and hold that sentiment in his hands. Maybe it would fill his palms like rain water, but it would never slip out through the spaces between his fingers. It would taste better than any candy.

He’s read many books with dialogue, of course. Fictional works nearly always had it. Some of the non-fiction did, too (which Haku rarely questioned; he had a great memory after all. Probably some authors did, too.) Growing up, there had been some weeks he'd rarely spoken to anyone at all. During those times he would open his latest story, and would try to insert himself into discussions between the characters. He’d read each line of conversation and reflect on how he would respond. In this way he was able to speak to someone, even if they never heard him. Even if they were a fictional construct. Even if they were something that would disappear if he set the pages on fire, or stomped a tablet until its screen cracked and its batteries lay smashed to pieces.

But nothing had really prepared him for tone or cadence, especially not with Eiri. Or Souma and Shuusuke, which now feels long ago. Or the _kouhai_ these days. Not even audiobooks could capture the sensation of being immersed in a conversation. It’s like treading water in a tidal wave. A strangely soothing tidal wave, when he's with the right people.

He also knows that talking won’t get Eiri to sleep. 

Haku shifts a little, until they’re sharing the same pillow. 

“”Please?’” He echoes Eiri. “What are you asking for?” 

“Uh…?” Eiri bites the corner of his lip, and then he licks it. Very briefly. “Haku?”

Quite often, when he initiates a kiss with Eiri, Haku will do what he does now. He’ll move on in- very quickly- until their noses almost touch. And then stops for a moment or two, to witness Eiri’s reaction. It’s funny, though. Haku has noticed most people demonstrate emotions with their eyes, and the wrinkling of their foreheads. With Eiri, it’s like his expressions are subject to gravity. They tend to drift down his face, manifesting most clearly (and quite obviously) in his mouth and chin. 

Haku stares, and barely blinks, and tries to memorize every single detail. It’s difficult in the dark, but he can still tell when Eiri scrunches up his lips like _oh, get on with it_. Haku drags his thumb over them, and then he pulls it away and does what Eiri won’t ask for out loud.

Eiri kisses back immediately, fast and hungry, like they’re much further along in this. He tastes a little like toothpaste, though mostly he tastes unlike anything at all. Haku holds Eiri’s head in his hands, and he sets a pace that is both hard and very, very slow. 

He waits and listens for all the usual signs. The staccato rise and fall of Eiri’s chest. The sounds that would be gasps, if they weren’t hushed against Haku’s lips. Those fingers that trail and scratch up and down Haku’s back. Sometimes, in the interest of observing, he forgets to maintain the motions of the kiss. Eiri’s reactions instill in Haku the same feeling he gets from a good book; one that entices him for a day or a week. Clearing out everything in his mind. Letting him slip away from being Haku – from being a jinx- for a short space of time.

But then Eiri will whine if the pause is too long. He’ll shake Haku’s shoulder, or yank at the front of Haku’s shirt, or shove his ankle down against the back of Haku’s leg. And these things are fascinating too. Stories didn’t push back like this. They didn’t make tangible demands, and they didn't leave bruises on his skin.

Eventually, though, he stops kissing Eiri. Haku pushes at Eiri’s elbows, getting his arms up above their heads. With one hand he grabs onto both of Eiri’s wrists. There’s realization encoded in the rigidity of Eiri’s body. There’s a few seconds of near wordless grumbling. And then then everything in Eiri gives way to acute curiosity. 

His messiah doesn’t speak a word, but he is not silent. 

Haku doesn’t know what peace looks like, but maybe this is close to it. 

“This is good.”

It doesn’t really demand an answer. It’s just something he knows. But Eiri says “yes,” and his voice is thick. It doesn’t waver. 

So Haku explores a little more. 

Underneath his shirt, Eiri is as slight and compact as always. Sometimes he lets Haku carry one of his big guns, and those things have some very familiar sharp angles. It’s a superficial similarity though. After all, by know he knows that there are many places where Eiri is delicate; the shell of his ear, the skin on his neck, his eyelids and his lips. And so many fun areas below the waist. 

Running his hand across Eiri’s torso, Haku’s palms slide across a number of scars. He knows their exact quantity. And yet, when he tries to count them his brain short-circuits before he can reach their exact amount. Whenever he reaches a higher number, he falls back to zero. The process must start again.

At first these marks are nothing but pattern-less chaos. None of them are quite the same size and shape. But Haku knows that Sakura’s labs could probably determine the type of gun that had made these wounds. They could determine the bullet’s speed and trajectory. They could determine whether Eiri had received them while standing or falling. There are some things they can't figure out though. Haku’s not that interested in the medical logic behind Eiri’s unlikely survival. He’s currently (and eternally) preoccupied by his messiah’s decision to throw himself into the path of those bullets in the first place. 

Not that Eiri is thinking of much, at the moment, beyond what Haku’s hand can do. 

This is about getting his messiah to sleep, but this isn’t entirely based in altruism. If it was, Haku wouldn’t slow down in order enjoy the rhythm of Eiri impatiently rolling his hips. He wouldn’t smirk at the way Eiri tries to pull his wrists free. He wouldn’t drink in those gasps that Eiri keeps from turning into pleas; _go lower. Please, just go lower._

Which he will. Haku sucks his own fingers, perfunctorily but also pretty loudly, close to his partner’s lips. When Eiri moans, the sound fills the air between them, wrapping around Haku’s body. The sound only gets louder when he finally closes his hand around his messiah’s cock.

Haku slides his slippery fingers up and down, the top of Eiri’s pants sliding against his wrist. The teasing is done now; this is what he intended to do. Eiri is thrashing, and groaning, and his hands finally wrench free from where they were held down. If this was some battle or skirmish- if they were enemies- this is when Haku would get punched out. But, for the moment, Eiri just clings to his shoulders, tugging on the fabric of his shirt. Haku’s collar stretches close to the breaking point, an undeniable pressure knocking into the back of his neck. Haku’s newly freed arm bends at the elbow, cradling the back of Eiri’s head. And he drives his messiah higher and higher, and he observes. Above all, he observes. 

Haku has no intention of getting off, but this is not without its own pleasures. Far from it. He is sure that every second of this encounter is being stored somewhere in the most efficient parts of his memory. Eiri is so hard against his fingers; hard and warm and fast. So full of ferocious vitality. When he manages to say Haku’s name it’s a refrain and a complaint and a declaration of love. Haku leans in close, until not even the darkness separates them. That’s how he can see Eiri’s frenzied eyes, and all the tightness in his neck. That’s how a groan becomes a renewed kiss. 

_(Yes, it’s clear now, and it will be clear later whenever this encounter pops into his brain during some routine task. On that day it will send shock-waves and stimuli through his body, and he’ll smile and smile at Eiri. And Eiri will know exactly what he’s remembering.)_

When his messiah comes, he twists his face into the crook of Haku’s elbow and bites down hard. Despite this measure against ungainly noise, he’s still loud. Because he’s still Eiri. 

The moments after are as honeyed as everything that came before. Eiri is redolent, lethargic, and Haku takes pride in his work. He finds some kleenex, kneels over Eiri, and cleans up. Haku’s a little afraid to touch him in these moments, sometimes. The over warm skin feels like it should flake away. Like he’s touching someone who’s horribly sunburned. 

“Haku…” Eiri gestures without lifting his hand from the bed. There’s a crackling sound as he brushes passed some candy wrappers, but, for once, he doesn’t notice them. Yes, Haku did a good job. Best yet, maybe. “Please tell me you’ll throw the tissue paper away. ” 

“Haven’t I always thrown these away?”

Eiri snorts. Probably because it’s true. After a while he brushes his fingers against Haku’s thigh, up and up, eventually latching onto a hip. 

“No, Eiri. I’m fine.” _You’re finally sleepy. Take advantage of it._ He grabs onto the back of Eiri’s hand, and makes him desist.

“Wait… But you didn’t… I was the only one who…” 

“That’s okay. You don’t have to.” Haku realizes that could be taken for demurring, so he decides to go the direct route. “I don’t want you to right now.” 

“No?” 

Too late, Haku realizes this could be taken as rejection. So he flops back onto the bed, and kisses Eiri on the forehead. When he makes an exaggerated smooching sound, he’s shoved away.

“Be serious! Why not?”

“I’m just tired, that’s all.” It would have been a lie a short half hour ago, but his eyelids actually have become heavy. Eiri is _a lot_ of work sometimes. “Make it up to me in the morning if you still feel like it.” 

There’s a noncommittal push against his ribs. “Oh, I’ll make it up to you. Trust me. “

Eiri gets this tone whenever he’s planning to do something incredibly interesting. _Well then_.

“Does this mean we can finally do it in the shower?”

“No! _Never!_ That’s just asking for disaster.” 

“But we’ve never even tried it.” 

“Ugh. Just go to sleep.” Lately Eiri’s taken to laying his head on Haku’s chest, and drifting off. It probably isn’t very comfortable, and they never discuss him doing this, but clearly it works. After all, Eiri is dozing already, like it hadn’t been an ordeal to get here. 

In many ways, life with Eiri made no sense. Lately it’s like a book that’s gone on past its final pages. On and on and on. But Haku is willing to see where their story leads.


End file.
